Re: [113attendees] IETF 113 Update: 2022-02-10

["Scheffenegger, Richard" <[e-mail]>]

Am 18.02.2022 um 20:49 schrieb Michael Richardson:
 >
 > I looked at the graphs, and I see a yellow label: "Now casting"
 > Do you understand what this means?
 >

If understand Nowcasting correctly, it takes into consideration the
fuzzyness of the most recent datapoints, and tries to arrive at a more
accurate value than what is in the pure raw datapoints.

One of the issues is, that the timestamp of when new data becomes
available to statistical analysis, and from when that data was actually
sampled, is more uncertain for most recent new datapoints, but much more
certain once the data has been in the database for some time.

As an example, look at the graph "verteilung neuer Fälle über die
letzten Tage" here https://orf.at/corona/daten/oesterreich

The daily bar graphs get adjusted, once more detailed information
becomes available to individual cases (or cases are validated ,
cross-checked, duplicates removed etc).  So, sampling this now, there
are shifts up to 3 weeks in the past, where individual cases are removed
or shifted around (forward/back, e.g. false positive tests etc). Not by
much (typically much less than 1% on a daily basis need correction), but
when you model quickly escalating, exponential growth functions, that
matters.

Nowcasting tries to give the "correct" current values, based on data
coming in with some statistical randomness and uncertainty.

Another site which discusses this in more detail, for the R-value can be
found here (in austrian german :) https://epimath.at/


 > The Austrian level of testing is leaps above what has been available
 > in Ottawa.   I wish that the debate here was between whether to
 > continue testing for 2 months or 4 months, rather than whether the
 > entire thing was a hoax.

Austria has it's fair share of "hoax claimers" too. But more
problematic, our former government declared, that testing is just as
good as getting vaccinated. And also declared the pandemic over last
summer... With the expected results in vaccination rates and compliance
by the populance to less popular measures...

 >
 > In Ottawa, we have:
 >     https://613covid.ca/wastewater/


Yes, all major wastewater treatment plants in austria do get sampled
daily for the virus load too (and this will be one larger cornerstone
once the restrictions are lifted, to detect the onset of another wave
early).

> An irony is that we have really only a single wastewater treatment plant,
> it's regularly overloaded (dumping raw sewage!). Many in the community
> have over decades criticized having a single non-redundant facility, and
> pumping waste water 60km across the region.  We've had significant floods
> caused by failures of the pumps.

If you are interested in the fresh water and sewage water engineering in
vienna, there is quite some story behind that.

The very quick summary: Vienna is (to the best of my knowledge) the only
major (>1 mio) city, where Tap Water is prestine mountain well water.
And about 70% of the city is provided with this spring water by pure
gravity flow from the mountains, via 3 pipelines (aqueducts).

The city of Vienna is one of the largest land-owners in styria and
lower-austria (wooded mountainous regions) from where the water is
collected.

You can do a sightseeing tour in the larger sewage canals of the city,
including the location where https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Third_Man
was shot. Since 1753 there have been laws enacted, that houses had to
dispose of wastewater in city-wide sewage canals, but as compliance was
not that great, the spring-water pipelines were also built to address
repeated cholera outbreaks.

If you are on the cheap, the Stadtpark - next door to the hotel - is
partially built on top of the river Wien. About 2 Metro stations
upstream (towards Hütteldorf; the metro runs literally next to the river
canal) you can enter that canal, and ride bike in it and see some of the
former overflow canals (no longer in function) for rainwater overspill.
Just get out of there when heavy rains are forcast (yellow warning
lights indicate, when a flood is to be expected though, to evacuate that
entrenchement).

(The modern city name Wien does not originate from the roman fort
Vindobona (Wine at the river Danube), but from an archaic german name of
these small river tributaries to the Danube.

However, speaking of Wine, there are Winemakers (Winzer) within the city
limits, and as the patches where wine can be grown diverge from spot to
spot regarding what sort of grapes can be grown, there exists a variety
of "Field blend" Wines ("Gemischter Satz").